Euston Manifesto

Whilst the SWP and friends, via RESPECT, attempt to redefine socialism within the politics of petty bourgeois radicalism and religious reaction, others now try and define it in terms of a liberalism compliant with Blairite capitalist renewal.

That’ll teach me to make silly jokes! A few issues back, in a fit of self-indulgent whimsy, I mocked some ex-comrades of ours who had abandoned socialist politics to enlist in George W Bush’s neo-conservative crusade to bring bourgeois democracy and American-style capitalism to Iraq. In a little skit, I had one of them confuse the Communist Manifesto with “the Bourgeois-Democratic Manifesto”.

This article will do no more than tabulate some of the symptoms and some of the causes of the political and moral chaos that has engulfed the erstwhile “revolutionary left”. In pursuit of “anti-imperialism” the most numerous force on the left — the SWP — is now in close alliance and makes solidarity with clerical-fascists such as Hamas and Hizbollah.

David Broder attended the “real world” launch of The Euston Manifesto in Islington on 25 May.

Despite the organisers’ claim that they had sold out a venue which could hold 800, only 250 actually turned up to the Manifesto launch. Apparently, most of the 1750 bloggers who have signed the Manifesto so far (eustonmanifesto.org) prefer to conduct their “politics” from behind a computer screen rather than venturing into the real world and talking to people.

Even given the number of academics and journalists on its supporters list, the “liberal left” Euston Manifesto has received a remarkable amount of press coverage. The latest is an article by Geoffrey Wheatcroft in the 10 May Guardian, arguing that the Eustonites should endorse a new era of “progressive” imperialism and colonialism to bring democracy to the world.

The Euston Manifesto, launched on 29 March, proposes a “fresh political alignment” of “democrats and progressives” reaching “beyond the socialist left towards egalitarian liberals and others of unambiguous democratic commitment”. It claims to want “to draw a line between the forces of the left that remain true to its authentic values”... But against whom do they wish to “draw a line”, asks Pete Radcliff?